


A Hundred Shades of Grey

by ArtemisRae



Series: 31 Days Drabbles [46]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Canon - Manga, Community: 31_days, F/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-05
Updated: 2008-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtemisRae/pseuds/ArtemisRae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He mostly arranges the funeral out of guilt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hundred Shades of Grey

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Livejournal community 31_days, with the theme: glorious eyes that smile and burn. Spoilers for Roy and Riza's backstory.

* * *

           He mostly arranged the funeral out of guilt.

 

           Roy didn’t know much about his sensei’s daughter: he’d spent the majority of his short time in the Hawkeye house holed up in the library and in the lab, reading madly through the books that seemed to multiply every time he turned the page and performing small, practical experiments that wouldn’t blow up the house. He’d been up to his ears in elements and bits of chemistry that hadn’t seemed important when they’d first been presented to him in school; the only time he ran into Riza, really, was during meals.

 

           What he did know about her was that she was older than she looked – only a year or two younger than he was, though something about her eyes always made him want to pitch her age far below what it actually was – and that she was intelligent, well read and far more educated than many young ladies her age were. He knew she hadn’t inherited her father’s passion for alchemy, and as a result Hawkeye-sensei seemed to rely upon her for little more than keeping the house running and dissuading unwelcome visitors.

 

           _My research – my daughter knows it all_.

 

           Apparently he had relied on her for a little more than housekeeping.

 

           The cemetery was chilly, but whether it was the cold or the discomfiture between them, they both had their jackets tucked tight. Despite the temperature the sun was out and casting a harsh light over them. It added a loud, realistic quality to a scene Roy couldn’t help feeling should be darker, or more delicate. He didn’t trust it. He didn’t trust himself.

 

           He’d originally had a speech planned; some stupid, gallant thing that was going to start out like a eulogy to her father. Then she had made her little plaintive plea, her request that he not die (_he_, someone she barely knew who’d lived in her house for little more than a year!) and he stuttered through his initial response before realizing that she had unwittingly given him the perfect opening.

 

           _If you say you will use my power in the correct way, she’ll probably present the secret to you_…

 

           That’s exactly what he said, and doing so, he felt like a vulture. It didn’t matter that the words were true, that his motivation for joining the military was to protect his country, that he wanted to shoulder that burden and that he honestly intended only to do good with her father’s work.

 

It seemed insignificant that he was baring a little part of his soul to her: the fact that he had told her at her father’s own funeral made him feel like a letch in a bar trying to coax some giggling, half-drunk girl into the car with him - like she only halfway knew what she was getting into, but he needed her right then so he was going to take advantage of her anyway.

 

When Riza gave him that tiny, sad smile and asked if she could trust her back to his future, his heart both sank and leapt. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, wanted to demand that she tell him everything, wanted to insist that she stop and think about what she was doing.

 

Instead he did nothing except bow his head and try to swallow the lump forming in his throat at the sight of her eyes begging from him the promise of a happy future.

* * *


End file.
